down.
I suspected the only reason we were still alive was that the birds were trying to decide who got the honor of the kill.
Each angry croak was a claim to my tasty bits: I get his liver!
No, I get his liver!
Well, I get his kidneys, then!
Ravens are as greedy as they are contrary. Alas, we couldn’t count on them arguing with one another for long. We’d be dead as soon as they figured out their proper pecking order. (Oh, maybe that’s why they call it a pecking order!)
Reyna took a swipe at one that was getting too close. She glanced at the catwalk on the crossbeam above us, perhaps calculating whether she’d have time to reach it if she sheathed her sword. Judging from her frustrated expression, her conclusion was no.
“Lester, I need intel,” she said. “Tell me how we defeat these things.”
“I don’t know!” I wailed. “Look, back in the old days, ravens used to be gentle and white, like doves, okay? But they were terrible gossips. One time I was dating this girl, Koronis. The ravens found out she was cheating on me, and they told me about it. I was so angry, I got Artemis to kill Koronis for me. Then I punished the ravens for being tattletales by turning them black.”
Reyna stared at me like she was contemplating another kick to my nose. “That story is messed up on so many levels.”
“Just wrong,” Meg agreed. “You had your sister kill a girl who was cheating on you?”
“Well, I—”
“Then you punished the birds that told you about it,” Reyna added, “by turning them black, as if black was bad and white was good?”
“When you put it that way, it doesn’t sound right,” I protested. “It’s just what happened when my curse scorched them. It also made them nasty-tempered flesh-eaters.”
“Oh, that’s much better,” Reyna snarled.
“If we let the birds eat you,” Meg asked, “will they leave Reyna and me alone?”
“I—What?” I worried that Meg might not be kidding. Her facial expression did not say kidding. It said serious about the birds eating you. “Listen, I was angry! Yes, I took it out on the birds, but after a few centuries I cooled down. I apologized. By then, they kind of liked being nasty-tempered flesh-eaters. As for Koronis—I mean, at least I saved the child she was pregnant with when Artemis killed her. He became Asclepius, god of medicine!”
“Your girlfriend was pregnant when you had her killed?” Reyna launched another kick at my face. I managed to dodge it, since I’d had a lot of practice cowering, but it hurt to know that this time she hadn’t been aiming at an incoming raven. Oh, no. She wanted to knock my teeth in.
“You suck,” Meg agreed.
“Can we talk about this later?” I pleaded. “Or perhaps never? I was a god then! I didn’t know what I was doing!”
A few months ago, a statement like that would have made no sense to me. Now, it seemed true. I felt as if Meg had given me her thick-lensed rhinestone-studded glasses, and to my horror, they corrected my eyesight. I didn’t like how small and tawdry and petty everything looked, rendered in perfect ugly clarity through the magic of Meg-o-Vision. Most of all, I didn’t like the way I looked—not just present-day Lester, but the god formerly known as Apollo.
Reyna exchanged glances with Meg. They seemed to reach a silent agreement that the most practical course of action would be to survive the ravens now so they could kill me themselves later.
“We’re dead if we stay here.” Reyna swung her sword at another enthusiastic flesh-eater. “We can’t fend them off and climb at the same time. Ideas?”
The ravens had one. It was called all-out attack.
They swarmed—pecking, scratching, croaking with rage.
“I’m sorry!” I screamed, futilely swatting at the birds. “I’m sorry!”
The ravens did not accept my apology. Claws ripped my pant legs. A beak clamped on to my quiver and almost pulled me off the ladder, leaving my feet dangling for a terrifying moment.
Reyna continued to slash away. Meg cursed and threw seeds like party favors from the worst parade float ever. A giant raven spiraled out of control, covered in daffodils. Another fell like a stone, its stomach bulging in the shape of a butternut squash.
My grip weakened on the rungs. Blood dripped from my nose, but I couldn’t spare a moment to wipe it away.
Reyna was right. If we didn’t move, we were dead. And we couldn’t move.
I scanned the crossbeam above